You may have noticed Instagram swarming with brands and influencers asking followers to "turn on notifications". Well, these notifications alert followers when certain accounts post a photo. The reason brands and influencers are making this ask is that they fear followers will no longer see their photos because Instagram news feed is evolving into something similar to Facebook’s timeline.
On March 15, Instagram announced on their blog that “Instagram feed will soon be ordered to show moments they think we will most care about,” no longer in chronological order. This could mean that if your best friend posted a photo of her new dog four hours ago and you just are logging in to check your Instagram news feed, Instagram will place that photo towards the beginning, so you don't miss it. For brands, this means we must create great content on Instagram that followers are willing to engage with, ensuring the brand's content is still being seen.
This change is driven by the statistic that we miss about 70% of our Instagram feeds, leading us to miss photos we may care the most about. Out of the other 30%, Instagram wants to make sure the photos we see are the photos we care the most about. But don’t worry; all photos will still be there, just rearranged.
This change is influenced by Facebook, whose News Feed Algorithm allows “users to see stories that interest you from friends you interact with the most.” Facebook faced backlash when the change was announced in 2009. Now however, it is a feature I think most people would deem successful.
Rumors began to spread that Instagram would be making these changes sooner rather than later, but Instagram reassured its users that it is still testing the feature and it won’t be put in effect for a few months.
